Contents

Introduction

This is a guide to the taskbar on Windows 10, using Jaws 2018 or later, and it has been updated
for the Windows 10 October 2018 update, which is being rolled out over a period of time.
If you're unsure whether you have this update, you can check this from the
version number. To find this, press Windows key,
to open the Start menu, type the word winver, and press Enter. An about
windows dialog opens, and it includes the version number. After the October 2018 update
the version number is 1809, and before it's 1803. A guide to the taskbar for the older
version is still available:
taskbar 10 version 1803 guide.

The taskbar is a thin bar that normally runs across
the bottom of the screen, and contains:

A type here to search button (Windows key + S). This opens
the Cortana window, and when this happens the button is replaced by a search box, and this is the
initial focus in the Cortana window. Similarly, when the Start menu is opened,
this button is replaced by a search box, which is the initial focus of the Start menu.
So you'll nearly always come across a Search box, rather than this button.

A Talk to Cortana button which gets Cortana to start listening for a request.

A Task view button, which opens a screen containing the following: a list
of running apps; a list of previous activities which is provided by the new Timeline
feature; a search button which opens
a search box for searching for previous activities; controls for creating and
moving between virtual desktops. These are used for
grouping the windows of running apps, but are not covered in this guide.
Note that all the lists on this screen are arranged as one or more rows,
and so you can move between the items using the keystrokes Left Arrow,
Right Arrow, Home, and End.

A group of taskbar buttons,
which can be used for
opening Desktop apps and Windows store apps, and switching between open windows.

A People button. This opens a window in which you pin contacts to the
taskbar. Using this pinned contact, you can access
relevant information and tasks in apps such as mail and skype. This feature
is not currently covered in this guide.

The Notification area, which
contains a clock and a number of icons which represent background
programs or services.

Show Desktop button. The large
area of the screen which isn't taken up with the taskbar is known as the
desktop, and normally contains a few shortcuts. The windows of Desktop apps and Windows store apps
are displayed in this area, and so either partially or completely hide
the desktop. If you press this button (Windows Key + D), then all
open windows are minimized, and the desktop becomes the focus.

If the focus is the Desktop, or one of the components of the taskbar,
then you can cycle round these by pressing Tab. However,
in practice, you'll normally use the more specialized keystrokes to move
to the items in the taskbar, and which are described in this guide.

Desktop apps and Windows store apps

In Windows 10, in addition to traditional desktop programs, there are
also Windows store apps. These are also often referred to as
Universal apps, or modern apps, and are different from traditional
desktop programs in a number of ways, including:

They can only be installed from the Windows store.

They don't appear in Programs and features in the Control Panel.

Microsoft refer to traditional desktop programs as Desktop apps, and
this name will normally be used in this guide.

Start menu

Using the Start menu, you can:

Open apps and some locations.

Search for and open apps, settings, files, and folders.

Shut down, sleep, restart, and sign out.

Perform some additional tasks, such as pinning apps
to the taskbar, and creating shortcuts for apps on the desktop.

To open the Start menu, press Windows Key.
If you select a menu item and press Enter, then
the Start menu automatically closes, just like any other menu.
However, if you want to close the menu without choosing an item,
you can press Esc or Windows key,
which closes the menu and returns the focus to wherever it was
before you opened the menu.

Normally, after you've selected an item on the menu, you'll just
want to open it by pressing Enter. However, unlike normal
menus, the items on the Start menu have context menus. For apps,
these include commands for pinning it to the Start menu and
Taskbar, which will be referred to in the relevant sections.

Structure

The Start menu opens immediately above the left hand end of the taskbar, and is
divided into three main columns:

A Start list, which includes a Power item,
which can be used to Shut down the computer.

An All apps list, which includes all the apps installed
on your computer.

A Pinned tiles list, which contains one or more groups of
pinned items, which can include apps, folders, libraries and
other objects.

When the Start menu is open, the Search box and Talk to Cortana button on the taskbar behave as if they
are part of the Start menu, and the Search box is the initial focus. The Search box can be used for opening apps,
and a range of other items, and is described in detail in the Search section
of this guide.

Moving around the menu

After opening the Start menu, the Search box, which appears underneath the All apps list,
is the initial focus. To move to other items, you can use the following keystrokes:

If the Search box is the focus, you can move to the top of the All apps list
by pressing Up Arrow or Down Arrow.

Pressing Shift + Tab cycles you around the same items in the reverse order,
except that the Talk to Cortana button is omitted.

Moving around the Start list, the All apps list, and the pinned items
are described in the relevant sections below.

Start list

This list contains the following items:

Toggle start navigation menu items, which is of interest to sighted users, but doesn't
affect how the items in the list are read by screen readers.
By default, the items in the list are displayed as icons. If you move to this item and
press Enter, the width of the list is expanded so that there's room
for both an icon and text for each item in the list. Pressing Enter
again, collapses the list so that only icons are shown.

User account for “user name”, which opens a menu which includes the command to sign out.

A list of places, which by default are documents, pictures,
and settings.

Power, which opens a menu containing commands to Sleep, Shut down, and Restart.

Changing the list of places in the start list is described in the
Customizing the start menu section. For example,
you can include folders like your personal folder, and your music folder.

All apps list

From the Search box, you can move to the All apps list by pressing Up Arrow,
or Down Arrow, or pressing Tab a few times. The list contains:

A group of recently added apps, if appropriate.

A group of most used apps.

A group of apps suggested by Microsoft may be present.

All the apps which have been installed on the computer, either by you or by
the company who built the PC, together with some programs which are part of Windows.
These apps are sorted alphabetically, and grouped by their initial character.

An item in the “all apps” part of this list is either an individual app, or a folder,
which contains a number of items which have been grouped together. For example,
the Windows Accessories folder contains apps such as Notepad and WordPad.

For each of the recently added, most used, and suggested groups, you can set whether or
not the group is shown, and this is described in the
Customizing the start menu section.

Selecting an item in the list

As with any list, you can select an item by pressing Up Arrow,
Down Arrow, Home and End.

You can type the first character of an app to take you to the first app in the
all apps part of the list which starts with that character. Note, however,
that typing the character again doesn't take you to any subsequent apps starting
with that character. You have to press Down Arrow to select other
apps starting with the same character.

By default, each folder is collapsed. You can press Enter
to expand it, and then the items which it contains are displayed below it.

Shut down, sleep, restart, and sign out

You can shut down, sleep, restart and sign out using either the start menu, or the
Quick link menu which is described in the following section, and which you may find more convenient.

To Shut down, sleep, or restart, then after you've opened the Start menu:

Tab to the Start list.

Press Down Arrow till you get to Power

Press Enter or Spacebar to open a menu,
and choose Shut down, Sleep, or Restart.

To Sign out, then after you've opened the Start menu:

Tab to the Start list.

Press Down Arrow till you get to User account.

Press Enter or Spacebar to open a menu,
and choose Sign out.

Quick link menu

The Start button's context menu is called the Quick link menu. You can open it by moving
to the Start button, and pressing the Application key, but a much quicker way
is simply to press the shortcut for this menu, which is Windows key + X.

The Quick link menu contains a number of useful items, including: apps and features,
and a Shutdown or sign out sub menu. The items on the menu all have access keys,
so for example to shut down the computer you could press Windows key + X to
open the Quick link menu, and then press the letter U twice.

Pinned tiles list

The pinned items are arranged into one or more groups. Each group has a group header,
which contains its name, and below this are the pinned items in the group which are laid
out as a grid. Each pinned item is represented by a tile, which can have a number of different
sizes, as described in the Tiles section below.

In a newly created Windows 10 account there are three groups: Create, Play, and Explore.
By default, the pinned tiles list of the Start menu has two columns
for displaying groups. The first column contains the Create and Explore groups, and the
second column contains the Explore group.

If the number of groups does not exceed the number of columns, then each group is placed
in a separate column, and so in effect the groups are in a single row. If there are
more groups, then these are added to the bottoms of the columns which already contain
one or more groups. The maximum number of columns is three, and you can change the number of
columns, as follows. With any item of the Start menu, apart from the Search box, as the
focus, you can increment or decrement the number of columns by pressing
Ctrl + Right Arrow or Ctrl + Left Arrow respectively.

After opening the Start menu, you can move to the pinned tiles list either by pressing
Tab a few times, or by pressing Up Arrow to move to the All apps list,
and then pressing Tab once. The initial focus is the group header of the first group.

Moving around the pinned tiles

To move around the pinned tiles:

You can use any of the Arrow keys. If you move to a different group, Jaws says the name
of the new group.

If the number of groups does not exceed the number of columns for the groups,
then you can move between the group headers using Left Arrow,
and Right arrow.

Within a group of pinned items, you can use the Jaws keystrokes for
moving around a table: Ctrl + Alt + Arrow key. If you use
these keystrokes you are prevented from accidentally moving
to another group. If you press Ctrl + Alt + 5 to read
the current item, then Jaws reads the position of the item in the grid,
and the size of the tile.

Tiles

The pinned items on the Start menu are represented by tiles. These are similar
to icons on the desktop, but they can have additional features. Some of the tiles for
Windows store apps are live tiles: they can contain information which is updated.
For example, the tile for the News app contains a recent news headline.

Tiles can have a number of different sizes:

Small, which is square tile of size 1.

Medium, which is a square tile of size 2.

Wide, which is a rectangular tile with width 2, and height 1.

Large, which is a square tile of size 4.

By default, the tiles for desktop apps are medium square tiles, but the sizes of the Windows
store apps vary. You can change the size of the tile of a pinned item by opening its context menu,
opening the resize sub menu and choosing a size. Note that on the Resize sub menu, the
current size is checked.

Pinning and unpinning items

You can pin items to the Start menu by choosing Pin to start from their context menu:

To pin a folder, drive, or a library, select it in File Explorer, and choose
Pin to start from its context menu.

To pin an installed desktop app or Windows store app, then either in the Apps list or
in the search results produced by using the Search box, open its context menu, and choose Pin to Start.

When you first add a pinned item, it's added to a new group, rather than to either
of the existing default groups. After that, the item is normally added to the last group.

To unpin an item, open its context menu and choose Unpin from Start. For apps, you
can do this either in the list of search results produced by using the Search box,
in the pinned tiles list, or in the All apps list. For folders, drives, or libraries,
you can do this either in the pinned tiles list, or in File Explorer.

Rearranging the tiles

There are keystrokes both for moving groups, and moving the tiles within and between groups. All these
keystroke coincide with the keystrokes used by Jaws for moving the mouse. So to use the keystrokes for
rearranging the pinned items, you have to press the Jaws passthrough key Insert + 3
before you press one of these keystrokes.

To move a group, select its group header, and press Shift + Alt + Arrow key.

Moving a tile within and between groups is not at all easy using Jaws, as it doesn't give you any feedback
as to where the tile has moved to, and how other tiles have been moved to accommodate this. The keystrokes
are again Shift + Alt + Arrow key, but it may not be worth the struggle.

Naming a group

To name or rename a group:

Select the group header, and press Enter. The focus becomes an edit box.

If there is any existing text in the edit box, it is unselected, so if you which to overwrite
the name, just press Ctrl + A to select this text, before typing in the new name.

After you have typed in the text, press Enter to close the edit box.

Additional tasks

As well as opening desktop and Windows store apps, you can also perform a number of additional
tasks. These are available using an app's context menu, which can be
opened after selecting an app either anywhere on the Start menu, or in the list of results produced by
using the Search box, which is described in the
Search section.

Uninstall a Windows store app.

Open the context menu of the app, and choose Uninstall. Note that it appears that not all Windows store apps
can be uninstalled.

Pin a desktop or Windows store app to the taskbar

Open the context menu of the app, and either choose Pin to taskbar, or if that isn't present on the menu, open
the More sub menu, and then choose Pin to taskbar.

Create a shortcut on the Desktop for a desktop app

Open the context menu of the app, and either choose Open file location, or if that isn't
present on the menu, open the More sub menu, and then choose Open file location.
File Explorer opens at one of the locations where the shortcuts corresponding to
to items in the All apps list are stored, and the shortcut to the app is selected.

Open the shortcut's context menu, open the Send to sub menu, and choose
Desktop (create shortcut).

Press Alt + F4 to close File Explorer.

Create a keyboard shortcut for a desktop app

If there's already a shortcut on the desktop for the app, then you can open the properties
dialog of that shortcut to create a keyboard shortcut. However you can create a keyboard
shortcut without having to create a desktop shortcut:

Open the context menu of the app, and either choose Open file location, or if that
isn't present on the menu, open the More sub menu, and then choose Open File location. File
Explorer opens at one of the locations where the shortcuts corresponding to the items in
the All apps list are stored, and the shortcut to the app is selected.

Open the shortcut's context menu, and choose properties. The properties
dialog for the shortcut opens on the shortcut page.

Tab to the Short cut key edit box. Press a single character, and the
shortcut will be Ctrl + Alt + character.

Press Enter to press the default OK button.

Press Alt + F4 to close File Explorer.

Create a shortcut on the desktop for Window Store or Desktop apps

You can't create a shortcut on the desktop for a Windows store app using the Start menu.
If you open its context menu, there's no menu item to open its file location. However,
you can create one using File Explorer, and the instructions are given here for convenience.

Press Windows key + E to open File Explorer.

Press Alt + D to move to the address bar, type shell:appsfolder (without any spaces),
and then press Enter. The items view now includes an item for each of the apps in the
All apps list.

In the items view, select an item, open its context menu, and choose Create shortcut. A
dialog opens, telling you that “Windows can't create a shortcut here. Do you want the
shortcut to be placed on the desktop instead?”.

The Yes button is the initial focus in this dialog, so just press Enter
to press it.

Search

When you open the Start menu by pressing the Windows Key, the Search box is
the initial focus, and this can be used for opening apps, and a wide range of other items. It
can also be used for typing in requests to Cortana, and this will be described in the
Cortana section below.

To open most apps, type either all or part of its name into the Search box, and press
Enter. You can type in either complete words of the beginnings of words,
and whenever there's a pause in your typing, Jaws reads out the best match to what you're typing.
As soon as you hear the name of the app, you can press Enter to open
it – you don't have to type in the full name.

The following sections describe the use of the Search box in more detail.

What is searched

The Search box can be used for finding and opening the following
categories of items, and the search results are displayed
using these categories:

Apps. This includes all the apps and other items in the apps view list,
and some other programs which are part of windows.

Settings, which includes all the tasks and settings available in the
Control panel and the Settings app.
To search for settings, you can also use the Search box in the Settings app,
and you'll get similar results.

Documents, Music, Photos, and Videos. All the files in your personal
folder are searched for these categories.

Folders, which are all the folders in your personal folder

Store, that is the Windows Store.

Web.

Email and People. These two categories are only available if you have
signed into the computer using a Microsoft account, rather than a local
account.

Searching

As soon as you type any characters into the Search box, the Start menu is
replaced by the Cortana window. A column in this window is directly above
the search box, and the search results are
displayed in this column. The Cortana window is described in more detail in the
Cortana window section below.

You can use either complete words or the beginnings of words
as search terms. As you type characters into the Search box, the list of search
results is continuously updated. The first result is automatically
selected, and whenever you pause after typing, Jaws reads the name
of this item, followed by its category. You can open it
by pressing Enter. Jaws also reads the
phrase “press right to switch preview”. The search result's
preview provides one way of accessing alternative actions to
simply opening the result, and is described in the
More actions section below.

Normally, by either typing in some distinctive search terms,
or by typing the full name, you can get the item you want to open
to be the first item in the list. However, sometimes there's a need
to select other items in the list, so that you can open them.
You can do this by using Down Arrow and
Up Arrow. Note that these keystroke don't move the
focus away from the Search box – if you type in more characters,
these appear in the search box.

From all the search results, only about the top eight are shown.
The best match or matches are at the top of the list, and the rest
are grouped using the categories which were described in the last
section, for example apps and settings. Before each of these
groups, there is an item which acts as a group heading, and
which has the form: Find results in some category. Note that
for web results, this item is Find results in search suggestions.
If you select one of these items,
and press Enter, then the search results are
filtered so that only results with that category are shown. Sometimes
a group heading is present in the results list with no search
results in its category following it. And so in this case, you have
to press Enter to see any results in this category.

More actions

Most of the time, you'll probably just want to open the item you find.
However, other actions are available from a search result's context menu,
and its preview.

The commands which are on an search result's context menu depend on the
category of the result. For apps, some of the commands were described above in the
Additional tasks section, which is
in the Start menu section. For files, you can open its location, which
opens File Explorer at the location of the file. This can be useful
if you don't know where a file has been saved. Note that when you
open the context menu, Jaws does not announce that the menu has been opened,
you can still select menu items using Down arrow and
Up arrow.

As described above, after the name and category of a search result,
screen readers read the phrase “press right to switch preview”.
If you press Right Arrow, then the focus moves to
a preview of the result which is displayed in a column to the right of the
search results in the Cortana window. As in the case of a search
result's context menu, its preview also depends on the category of the
result. For example:

For a web result, the preview is a preview of the web page.

For an app result, the preview consists of one or more lists.
There's always an action list, and the items in the list are the
same as the commands available in the search result's context menu.
If the app has a
jump list, then there will probably
be a recent or a frequent list, and there may be a pinned list.
Following each of these lists, there may be an expand button for
showing more items in the preceding list. Unfortunately, Jaws
cannot currently navigate these lists, although the Narrator
screen reader can.

For many of the other categories, the preview consists of a list
which contains the same items as the result's context menu. Again,
Jaws cannot navigate this list, although narrator can.

Searching a specific category

You can limit a search to a specific category, for example, settings or documents,
and the following sections describe three ways of doing this. Just use the way that
you find most convenient. When you search for files in a category, the names,
properties, and where appropriate the contents of files are searched, rather
than just the names.

Using the filters list

After you have typed in your search terms, pressing Tab twice moves
you to the Filters list. This list is laid out as a row of items, and appears along the top
of the main area of the Cortana window. You can move between the items using
Left Arrow and Right Arrow. The list contains items for finding
results in some of the more common categories, and a more filters item.

To filter for one of the more common categories, move to the appropriate item, for example,
“Find results in documents” and press Enter to select it.
The focus returns to the search box, and Jaws reads the first item in the filtered
list of results.

To find results in other categories, move to the More filters item, and press
Enter to open a menu. Move to the item you want, and press
Enter. The focus returns to the search box,
and Jaws reads the first item in the filtered list of results.

If you want to remove the current filter, press Tab twice, to
move to the first item in the Filters list, “Find the most relevant results
on this PC and the web”, and press Enter.

Specifying the category in the Search box

You can limit a search to a category by typing the category followed by a colon
followed by your search terms. For example, if you are looking for a document which is either named fred
or contains the word fred, you can
type doc:fred. You can use the following words to specify the category which is searched: app,
doc, folder, music, photo, setting, video, and web. In addition, if you've signed in with
a Microsoft account, then you can also use the words email, and people. Where appropriate
you can also use the plural
form of these words, so for example, you could search using either app:fred or apps:fred.
You can also use document rather than doc, if you really want to type the extra letters.

Using the headings in the list of results

As mentioned above, before each of the groups in the list of results, there is an item with a
name which has the form: Find results in a category, for example, apps. To use one of these
items to filter the results, select it, and press Enter.

Cortana window

As soon as you type any characters in the Search box, the Start menu is replaced
by the Cortana window, and you can also open the Cortana window directly by pressing
Windows key + S. It's called the Cortana window because it can used for
interacting with the personal assistant Cortana, as well as for conventional searching.
The window opens immediately above the left hand end of the taskbar, and is divided into two main parts:

A narrow column on the left hand side, which contains both the names of pages which
can be displayed in the Cortana window, and items for opening the Settings app
at appropriate pages. The list will be referred to as the navigation list,
and is described in detail in the next section.

The main area of the window where the different pages are displayed.

When the Cortana window is open, the Search box and the Talk to Cortana button on the taskbar behave as
if they are part of the Cortana window, and the Search box is the initial focus. Pressing
Tab cycles you round: search box, a Talk to Cortana button, the navigation list,
and any controls or links in the main area.

Navigation list

This list contains both items for settings which page is displayed in the Cortana window,
and items for opening the Settings app at appropriate page. For both cases, select the item
in the list and press Enter. The items in the list are as follows:

Toggle navigation menu. This is not the name of a page, but is for the benefit of sighted users.
The items in the list of pages are displayed as icons. If you move to this item and
press Enter, the left hand column is expanded so that there's room
for both an icon and text for each item in the list.

Home, a page in the Cortana window which is used for displaying search results,
and Cortana's responses.

Sign out or Sign in, depending on whether you are signed into Cortana. Sign in
opens page containing a button for signing in. Sign out opens the Settings app at
the page for the main Cortana category, with the permissions & history category
selected. There's a button whose name is the email address of your Microsoft account,
and pressing it takes you to a window where you can sign out.

Settings, which opens the Settings app at the page for the main Cortana category.

Feedback, a page in the Cortana window for sending feedback to Microsoft.

Cortana

Cortana is a personal assistant. You can ask Cortana questions, and ask it to do tasks
like setting an alarm or reminder. If you ask it to “tell me a joke”, some
of the jokes are even quite good. You can type your requests to Cortana in the Search box, or
you can speak them, provided that the computer has either an internal or external microphone.

To be able to respond to many types of requests, Cortana needs your permission to collect
and use personal information. When this occurs, Cortana's request for your permission to use some
specified personal information appears in the main area of the Cortana window, together with
“Sure” and “Maybe later” buttons.

In addition, for many requests, Cortana needs to have access to a Microsoft account.
If you've signed into the computer using a Microsoft account, then Cortana automatically has access
to this account. However if you've signed in with at Local account, then you'll need to sign in
to Cortana with a Microsoft account, which is described the
Signing into Cortana with a Microsoft account section.

Cortana sends notifications to the action center for items such as reminders and
breaking news about the interests which you've given in Cortana's notebook, which is
described below. If you use Microsoft's Edge browser, then on a new Tab, the items
are customized according to your interests.

Speaking a request

There are a couple of ways that you can indicate to Cortana that it should
listen for a request. The first way is to press the Talk to Cortana button:

If the Search box is the focus, then you can
press Tab to move to the Talk to Cortana button, and then press it.
Alternatively, you can use the shortcut Windows key + C to
press this button. However, to use this shortcut, you have to enable it,
as described in the
Enabling shortcut to
get Cortana to listen section, which is the Customizing the taskbar
section. After the button is pressed Cortana plays
a sound to indicate that it's listening. If Jaws starts reading the name
of the button, and how to press it, you might want to press Ctrl
to silence Jaws.

Speak your request. If Cortana can deal with this request, then any
reply is shown in the main area of the Cortana
window, and Cortana reads at least some of the reply. If you need to read
more than Cortana reads out, then because the reply is formatted like a web
page, you can use all the standard Jaws commands for reading web pages.
After Cortana has stopped reading, the focus may already be in the main
column, but if not, you can easily Tab to it.

If Cortana can't deal with your request, then it opens a web browser to
search for your request on the web.

You can also set Cortana to listen for a request after you have spoken
the phrase “Hey Cortana”. How to set whether Cortana responds to this phrase is
described in the Customizing Cortana and search section, which is in the
Customizing the Taskbar section.

Typing a request

Either press Window key + S to open the Cortana window, or
press Windows key to open the Start menu, and this will
be replaced by the Cortana window as soon as you start typing.

Type in your request. A list of search results is displayed in
a column in the Cortana window,
in the same way as if you were doing a search, and
the name of the first search result will be your request. For some
categories of result, if you open it, then Cortana's response is shown in
the Cortana window. For example, if you type “tell me a joke”,
then the first search result has the Let's chat category. If you open the
result, then a joke is shown in the Cortana window. However, for some requests,
the category of the result will be a web result, and you can either open
it in a web browser, or press Right Arrow to move to
a preview in the Cortana window.

Home page

If you open the Cortana windows by pressing Windows key + S, then
the window opens at its home page, which includes the following links:

Five links for finding results in Apps, Settings, Documents, Photos, and Web.
If you open one of these then
the search box becomes the focus, and you can type in one or more search terms
and only results in the appropriate category are shown. Other ways of limiting
a search to a specific category can be found in the
Searching a specific category section,
which is in the Search section.

One or two ideas for requests. If you open one of these links, then Cortana
receives that request, and any reply is shown in the main area of the Cortana
window.

If you type any text into the Search box, then these links are replaced by the
relevant search results.

Cortana's notebook

Using Cortana's notebook you can specify which tasks you want Cortana to perform for you,
provide personal information to help with those tasks, and edit the lists
and reminders which can be managed by Cortana. You can access Cortana's Notebook
on the Notebook page of the Cortana window:

Press Windows key + S to open the Cortana window.

Press Tab twice to move to the list in which Home is the initial focus.

In this list, select notebook, and press Enter. Cortana's notebook
is displayed in the main area of the Cortana window.

The main page of Cortana's notebook contains:

An edit profile link, which opens a page for adding your home, work, and favourite locations.

A group of two tabs, organizer and manage skills, which are described in the next two sections.

Unfortunately, Jaws does not read which of the two tabs is selected. To select one of the tabs,
tab to the tab name and press Enter.

Organizer tab

On this tab, you can edit the lists and reminders which are managed for you by Cortana. The tab contains four links:

Lists, which opens a page which contains links for the Grocery, Shopping, and To Do lists.
If you open one of these links, you are taken to a page where you can manage that list.

Add to your To-Do list, which is a shortcut for adding items to your To-Do list.

Reminders, which opens a page contains a list of existing reminders, together with controls for adding a new reminder and
managing the existing reminders.

Create a reminder, which is a shortcut for adding a reminder.

Manage Skills tab

On this tab, you can specify which tasks you would like Cortana to perform for you, such
as keeping you up to date with the news or the weather. In addition, you can supply information
to help Cortana with these tasks.

There are a number of links which each open page. The first link is Connected services, and
it opens a page which contains links for a number of services, such as outlook.com and Gmail.
The text of the link includes whether or not Cortana is connected to that service, and opening
the link opens a page where you can either connect or disconnect, as appropriate.

The remaining pages are for specifying which of Cortana's skills you want. They all have
the same basic format: a back button, followed by controls for indicating your interests.

Tips and tricks

To go to a collection of tips and tricks for using Cortana, press Windows key + S
to open the Cortana window, Tab to the “see all tips” link, and open it.
A Tips and tricks page is shown in the main area of the Cortana window,
and it contains a series of links for the things which Cortana can help
you with. If you Tab to a link and open it, you're taken to a new page which contains
a series of links, which are ideas for requests. If you open a link, then Cortana receives
that request, and any reply is shown in the main area of the Cortana window.
If you want Cortana to read the reply, then speak the request, rather than opening
the link.
To return to the previous page, press Shift + Tab
to move to a back button, and press it.

Taskbar buttons

Assuming the default settings for taskbar buttons, which are described
in the Customizing the taskbar buttons section
of the Customizing section, a desktop app or a Windows store app has
a button on the taskbar if it's pinned to the taskbar, or it's running and
has one or more windows open. Using an app's taskbar button you can:

Open the app.

Switch to or close any of the apps's open windows.
In the case of the web browser Internet Explorer, you can switch to
and close the open tabs, and all the
references to tabs in following description of the taskbar buttons
refer to the tabs of Internet Explorer.

Open the apps's Jump List.

There are two main ways of interacting with the taskbar buttons:

The first is to move the focus to one of the buttons, and then use
various keystrokes to interact with this button. This is described in
the next two sections.

The first taskbar buttons are for the pinned apps. By default,
after Windows has been installed, a number of apps are pinned to
the taskbar, but you can easily pin and unpin apps as described in the
Pinning and unpinning apps section.

Although you may find using the taskbar buttons convenient, you don't have
to use them: you can open apps using the Start menu, and there are two
other ways of switching to opened windows:

To switch to the previously viewed window, press Alt + Tab.
To move to any window, hold down the Alt key,
and then repeatedly press Tab until you hear the
title of the window you want.

Open the Windows List dialog by pressing Insert + F10.
The first control is a list box which contains the titles of the opened
windows in alphabetical order. Select a title, and press Enter.

Moving to a taskbar button

You can use Windows Key + T to cycle round the taskbar
buttons. If the focus is not one of the taskbar buttons, then pressing
Windows Key + T moves you to the first taskbar button,
and if the focus is one of these buttons it moves you to the next button.

Once the focus is one of the taskbar buttons, you can also use these
keystrokes to move around the buttons:

Pressing Right Arrow or Left Arrow
moves you to the next or previous button respectively.

Pressing Home or End moves you to
the first or the last button respectively.

The first character of the app's name.

When you move to a button, Jaws tells you the number of windows
which the app has open:

If there are no windows open, then Jaws reads the name of the app,
followed by the word button.

If the app has windows open, then Jaws reads the name of the app,
followed by the number of windows running (open), followed by the
phrase button menu. Unfortunately, if there are two or more windows open
Jaws also adds that you can use the arrow keys to move between windows
– just ignore this, as it's incorrect.

Note that the number of open windows determines
what happens if you press the button using Spacebar, as
described in the next section.

Interacting with a taskbar button which is the focus

If you move to a taskbar button for an app which has one or more
windows or tabs open, then a taskbar switcher list box temporarily opens above
the button, and this contains the titles of these open
windows or tabs, in the order in which they were opened. The focus doesn't
automatically move to this list box, but it's used in some of the following
tasks, and is described in more detail in the next section.

If a taskbar button is the focus, then:

To either open an app, or switch to a window or tab which is already
open, press
Spacebar – the effect
depends on how many windows or tabs of the app are already open:

If the app has no open windows, then the app is opened.

If the app has one window open, then the focus is switched to it.
However, for Internet Explorer, if there is
more than one tab open, then the focus becomes the first item
in the task switcher list box, which is described in the next section.

If the app has more than one window open, then
the focus becomes the first item in the task switcher list box,
which is described in more detail in the next section. You can
then select the window or tab that you want to switch to,
and press Enter.

To open a context menu which includes the app's Jump List, press the
Application key.

To close all the windows or tabs for an app, open the context menu,
and choose either Close Window or Close all windows.

To open a new instance of the app, whether or not it's already
running, press Shift + Enter. Note
that for some apps, such as email clients, only one instance can run.
If it needs to have administrator privileges, press
Ctrl + Shift + Enter.

To move to the task switch list box, press Down Arrow
twice or Up Arrow twice. Unlike using
Spacebar, these keystrokes can be used when there's
only a single item in the task switcher list box. Note that if Jaws is
not running, then you only have to press these keys once. Jaws seems to
be swallowing the first key pressed.

Task switcher list box

The task switcher list box automatically opens above an app's taskbar
button if the button has the focus, and the app has one or more open
windows or tabs.

The list box normally contains the titles of an app's open windows,
listed in the order in which they were opened.
However, in the case of Internet Explorer, if an open window
contains multiple tabs, then there are titles for each of the tabs, rather than
just a single title for the window, and these are also listed in the order
in which they were opened. Bug Warning: Jaws seems to think
that there are three times as many items in this list box as there actually
are. So, for example, if there are two items in the list box, then when
Jaws reads the first item, it incorrectly says 1 of 6.

The items in the list box are displayed as a row of items, and you can use the
following keystrokes in the list box:

You can cycle forward or backward through the items using
Right Arrow or Left Arrow, and you can
also do this using Tab and Shift + Tab.

To select the first or last item, press Home or
End respectively.

Note that you can not select an item by using its first character
– this just closes the list box, for reasons unknown.

To close the list box, you can press either Esc or
Down Arrow.

The task switcher list box can also temporarily open whilst using the
Windows Key + number keystroke, as described in the next
section.

Keystrokes which use an app's position

There are a number of keystrokes which use the position of an app's button
on the taskbar, and you can use the numbers 1 through to 0, which gives
a total of 10 possible apps. Normally these are useful only for
pinned apps, because their positions are known.

To either open an app, or switch to a window or tab which is already
open, you can use Windows Key + number – its effect
depends on how many windows or tabs of the app at that position are already
open. If the app isn't running, then the app is opened.
If there's one open window or tab
then the focus is switched to it. However, if it's already the focus,
then the previous window becomes the focus. If there is more than one
window or tab open, then the task switcher list box temporarily opens
with the first title selected, which corresponds to the first window
or tab opened. The list box automatically closes, and the
focus is switched to the window or tab.

If there is more than one window or tab, you
can also switch to any of these, rather than just the first:

Start holding down the Windows Key.

Press a number key. The task switcher list box opens with
the first title selected. The titles are listed in the order
in which they were opened, and you can cycle round them by
repeatedly pressing the number key.

When you've selected the title you want, release the
Windows Key. The task switcher list box closes, and
the focus is switched to the window or tab you
selected.

To open a menu which includes the Jump List of an app, press
Alt + Windows Key + number.

To open a new instance of an app, whether or not the app is
already running, press
Shift + Windows Key + number.
If you need the app to run with administrative privileges, then press
Ctrl + Shift + Windows Key + number.

Pinning and unpinning apps

You can pin an app to the taskbar either using the taskbar buttons, or
from the Start menu.

To pin an app to the Taskbar using the taskbar buttons:

Open the app, and move to its taskbar button.

Open its context menu, and choose Pin to taskbar.

To pin an app to the Taskbar from the Start menu:

Move to the app either on the Start menu or in
the list of search results.

Open its context menu, and choose Pin to taskbar.

So, for example, if you wanted to pin the Control Panel to the taskbar,
you could open the Control Panel, press Windows key + T until
you get to the taskbar button for the control panel,
and then choose Pin to taskbar from its context menu.

To unpin an app from the taskbar, select the pinned app,
open its context menu, and choose Unpin from taskbar.

Changing the order of the pinned apps

Sighted users can change the order of the pinned apps by dragging
them using the mouse. Although, in theory, Jaws users can do this using the Jaws cursor,
in practice it's easier just to remove all the pinned apps, and
then pin the apps in the order that you want.

Jump Lists

For many apps, Windows 10 provides a Jump list, which contains recent or frequently
opened items, and can also contain more permanently pinned items. For example,
File Explorer's jump list contains frequent locations, and Microsoft Word's contains
recent document. If an app has a jump list,
then it's included in the context menu of both the app's taskbar button, and the app
on the Start menu. So if an item is on an apps jump list you can quickly open it
by choosing it on one of these context menus.

A Jump List is divided into one or more sections, and the following sections often appear,
and in this order:

Pinned. These items stay on the Jump List until you unpin then. By
default there are no pinned items, and how to pin and unpin items are
described in the next section.

Frequent or Recent.

Tasks.

Note that in the context menu of an app's taskbar button, Jaws reads the names of these
groups as you move about the menu, but this isn't the case in the context menu of an
app on the Start menu.

You can select an item using most of the usual keystrokes for a list:
Up Arrow, Down Arrow, Home,
and End. Unfortunately, you can't use the first character of the item
— hopefully Microsoft will fix this.

Pinning and unpinning items

There are a couple of ways of pinning a frequently used or recent item:

Choose Pin to this list from its context menu.

Press Right Arrow to move to a “pin something to this list”
button, and press it.

Similarly, there are a couple of ways of unpinning a pinned item:

Choose Unpin from this list from its context menu.

Press Right Arrow to move to an ”unpin something from this list”
button, and press it.

Notification area

The notification area contains a clock and an number of icons, which
normally represent background programs or services which are running on
the computer. In versions of Windows before Windows XP, the notification area was known as the System tray,
and Jaws still refers to it using this name.

Each icon normally provides some status information, and allows you to change
some of the settings of the program or the service. Examples of icons which
are normally present are a speaker(volume) icon, and a network icon. New in
Windows 10, there is an action centre icon which provides one of the
ways of opening the Action centre, and provides
the status information as to whether there are any new notifications in
the Action centre. Unfortunately the status of this icon
is not currently accessible to users of screen readers. Notifications and the
Action centre are both described in the next main section of this guide.

By default, some of the icons are hidden. However, you can either set
them all to be shown, or set each icon individually,
as described in the
Customizing the notification area section
of the Customizing section. Normally, it's most convenient to have them all shown.

You can interact with the icons and the clock using either
keystrokes which are part of Jaws, or standard Windows Keystrokes,
and these are described in the next two sections.

Using Jaws keystrokes

You can access the icons in the notification area by opening the
Select a System Tray Icon dialog (Insert + F11), and
you can read the time by pressing (Insert + F12),
and the date by pressing the latter keystroke twice quickly.

The Select a System Tray Icon dialog contains:

A list box which contains an item for each icon which is shown
in the notification area. An item is often the name and/or status of the
program or service represented by the icon. For example, the item for
the speaker icon might be “Speakers: 52%”.

Right Single Click button, which opens the icon's context menu,
with the first item selected. This is the dialog's default button.

Left Single Click button. The effect depends on the icon, but
it often opens a dialog.

Left Double Click button. Again, the effect depends on the icon: it
can either open a window or dialog, or do nothing.

Cancel button (Esc).

So, for example, to open the volume mixer dialog to adjust the system
volume:

The Volume mixer dialog opens, and the initial focus is the
volume slider of the Speakers. Adjust the volume, and then close the dialog
by pressing Enter.

Using Windows keystrokes

Assuming that all the icons are shown, then you can use the following
keystrokes to move to an icon.

Pressing Windows + B moves you to the first
icon.

You can then cycle forward or backwards through the icons and the clock
using Right Arrow and Left Arrow
respectively.

You can use the first letter of the phrase which Jaws reads when you
move to the icon.

When an icon is the focus, then a small
amount of text appears above the icon, and this is what Jaws reads when you move
to an icon. This text is normally either the name or the status of the
program or service which the icon represents.

With an icon as the focus:

To open the icon's context menu, press Application Key.

The effect of pressing Spacebar or Enter
depends on the icon, but often opens a small dialog. For example, in the case of the
Speaker icon, a small dialog opens, and the initial focus is a volume
slider for the speakers.

If there are any hidden icons, then the first item in the notification
area is a notification chevron button. If you press this button then a
toolbar, which contains the hidden icons, appears directly above the notification area.
You can then access all the icons using the arrow
keys. However if the button is the focus, you can't use the first
character of an icon to move to it.

Note that for a small number of icons, after you
have pressed Spacebar, or Enter or
Application Key, the mouse pointer is moved to this
icon, and this can interfere with the subsequent navigation to the other
icons in the Notification area.

Notifications

From time to time, Windows or an app, may want to draw your attention to some information, such
as an update has been installed, or you have a new mail message. This can be done using a notification,
which can take the form of one or more of the following:

A notification banner. This is a small window which temporarily appears above the notification
area, and is also often known as a toast notification.

A new notification is listed in the Action centre.
When there are new notifications are available in the Action centre, the status of the notification centre
icon in the notification area indicates this, but as noted above, this information is
unfortunately not currently accessible to screen readers.

A sound is played.

The notifications sent by apps and from Windows, can be customized in
the Settings app, as described in the
Customizing notifications section. For each sender,
you can set whether or not you want notifications, and if you do, you can set which sorts of
notification are sent. The default settings for many, but not all senders are to send all types of notification.
In addition, for some apps, the notifications sent by them can be customized in their own settings.

For periods of time when notifications banners and sounds would be an unwanted distraction, a
feature known as Focus assist allows you to temporarily control which notification banners and sounds
are received. Focus assist is a successor to quiet hours which was available in previous versions of
Windows 10, and is described in the Focus assist section below.

Notification banners

A Notification banner is a small window which temporarily appears above the notification area,
and it's also often called a toast notification. Jaws 18 automatically reads the content of a notification
banner, and while the notification banner is still open, you can move to it
by pressing Windows key + Shift + V. By default, notification banners stay open for about 5 seconds
before closing, but you can increase this time to give yourself more time if you need to move to them,
as described in the
Time notification banners remain open section
of the Customizing section.

A notification banner may contain controls for actions related to the notification,
and always includes a dismiss this notification button. Once the notification banner is the focus,
you can also dismiss it by pressing Delete. In rare cases where more than one notification banner
is open, if you tab past the dismiss this notification button, you'll move to another notification banner.

Action centre

The easiest way of opening the Action centre is to use the shortcut Windows key + A.
Alternatively you can move to the action centre button in the notification area, and press it.
You can close the Action centre by pressing Esc or Windows key + A.
The Action centre contains the following controls:

A list of notifications, which is described in the next section.

A Collapse/Expand quick actions button, which enables you to set whether all or only four quick action
buttons are shown.

A Clear all notifications button.

A list of Quick actions buttons, such as a button to open the Settings app.
The buttons are displayed as one or more rows, and you can move
between the buttons using the keystrokes Left Arrow, Right Arrow,
Home, and End. Note that Jaws does not read the state of the
Focus assist button correctly, and you're recommended to use one of the other ways to
change this setting. You can choose which buttons are shown,
as described in Customizing the Action centre section.

You can cycle round these controls forwards or backwards by pressing Tab
or Shift + Tab respectively.

List of notifications

The notifications are grouped by the Windows service or the app which sent them. In the list, the
name of the group appears before the notifications in that group, and has the format
“Notifications from some group”. By default, for each group, the Action centre keeps
only the three most recent notifications, and in addition, some notifications are
automatically removed after an appropriate time. So although there are a number
of ways of removing notifications manually, you won't normally need to use them.

You can move to all the items in the list using the keystrokes Up Arrow,
and Down Arrow. In addition, you can move through just the names of the groups,
by pressing Tab or Shift + Tab.

If a notification is informing you that something needs doing, or something new is available, then if
you press Enter or Spacebar, you'll be taken to the appropriate app
or part of Windows.

At the right hand side of each notification in the list, there are one or two buttons,
which you can move to by tabbing:

A clear this notification button. You can also remove a notification simply by moving
to it and pressing Delete.

For some notifications, there is an expand button, which
displays additional text and/or additional controls. Screen readers read all the text, whether or
not the notification is expanded, but if there are additional controls, you will only be
able to tab to them if the notification is expanded.

To the right of each group
name there's a “Clear all notifications in this group” button. Again,
as an alternative to moving this button by pressing Tab and pressing it,
you can just press Delete. If you Tab past the button, you'll
move to either the next group name, if there is one, or the Collapse/Expand quick actions button.

For each Windows service or app which sends notifications, there is a priority level which
determines how near the top of the list of notifications the notifications from that sender appears.
So by setting the appropriate priorities, you can ensure that the notifications of most interest
are at or near the top of this list. How to set the priorities of senders is described in the
Customizing notifications section.

Note that when you open the Action centre, you might expect the first notification in the
list to be the initial focus. However, this isn't always the case, and you may have to
Tab to it.

Focus assist

Focus assist allows you to temporarily control which notification banners and sounds
are received. The notifications sent to the Action centre are not affected. It has three settings:

Off, which is the default setting.

Priority only. You only get notification banners and sounds from the senders specified in
a priority list, and from alarms. You can customize your priority list, as described in the
Customizing focus assist section.

Alarms only. You only get notification banners and sounds from alarms.

You can change the Focus assist setting both manually, and by using automatic rules.
One way of manually changing the setting is to use the context menu of the action centre
icon in the notification area:

Press Windows key + B to move to the notification area.

Since the action centre is the last icon in the notification area, you can
move to it by pressing Left Arrow.

Open its context menu, open the Focus assist sub menu, and choose an option.

You can also manually change the focus assist setting by going to the focus assist
page of the Settings app, and you can do this by searching for focus assist in the
Start menu.

You can set focus assist to turn on automatically, triggered by the time of day and
for some tasks. The settings for the automatic rules are also on the focus assist
page of the Settings app, and are described in the
Customizing focus assist section.

Customizing the taskbar

In Windows 10, many of the settings for customizing the various parts of the taskbar
are to be found in the Settings app. And so this will be described in the next section,
before going on to the describe the customizations.

Settings app

The easiest way of opening the Settings app is by pressing the shortcut
Windows key + I. Alternatively, by default it appears in the
start list on the Start menu, or you can search for it.

The following sections describe both how to browse the pages of the Settings app, and
how to search for settings.

Home page

A list of main categories. These are arranged as one or more rows, and you can move to
a category using the keystrokes: Left Arrow, Right Arrow,
Home, and End.

You can move between the Search box and the list of main categories by pressing
Tab. If you move to one of the main categories in the list, and press
Enter, then you're taken to a page for that category, and the layout of
this page is described in the next section.

Main category page

The page for each main category contains:

A Home button. If you press this it takes you back to the Home page of the Settings app.

A list of categories. The main category is divided into these categories, and this
list of categories is arranged as a vertical list. When the page opens, the first
category in the list is selected. You can select another category
by moving to it in the list, and pressing Enter. The keystrokes for
moving around the list are: Up Arrow, Down Arrow,
Home, and End.

The controls for the settings of the selected category.

When a main category page opens, the first category in the category list is selected, so if you're
interested in the settings for this category, you can just Tab past the list to them.
If you're interested in another category, move to it in the list and press Enter,
and then you can Tab to the settings.

There are a couple of keystrokes for moving around the Settings app:

Pressing Alt + Left Arrow takes you back up a level, and is a
convenient alternative to pressing the Home button.

Pressing Backspace also takes you back up a level, except on the main
category page if either the search box or one of the controls for the settings is the
focus. In the latter case, pressing Backspace moves you back to the
list of categories on the same page.

A type of control which is used for many of the settings is a control which Jaws reads as being a button.
This control behaves like a switch which can be either On or Off, and you can change its setting
by pressing Spacebar. Note that whilst Jaws 2018 or later reads the state of the button
as On or Off, Jaws 18 or earlier reads the button as being checked if it is On, and just reads
the name of the button if it is Off.

Search box

You can search for settings from both the home page, and the main category pages. You
can move to the Search box either by tabbing, or pressing Ctrl + E. The results
includes settings in both the Settings app the Control Panel.

Once you have moved to the search box, there a couple of ways in which the search
results can be presented. The first way uses a drop down list:

Type in your search terms. The search results appear in a drop down list box which
is displayed below the search box.

Select one of the search results in the list by pressing Down Arrow,
or Up Arrow, and then press Enter.

The second way gives a very similar experience to searching in the Cortana window:

Once you have moved to the Search box, press Enter. You are taken to a new page,
which contains only a search box, and a home button.

Type in your search terms. As soon as you start typing, as list of search results is
displayed, and in similar manner to searching in the Cortana window, Jaws reads the
first result when there is a pause in your typing.

If the first result is what you were searching for, just press Enter.
Otherwise you can select other results in the list using Down Arrow
and Up Arrow, and then press Enter.

Customizing the Start menu

The settings for the Start menu can be found in the Settings App. In the main
Personalisation category, there's a Start category which includes controls for the following
settings:

Whether the most used, new and suggested apps are shown in the All apps list

There are buttons for each of these, all of which are On by default:

Show suggestions occasionally in start.

Show most used apps.

Show the recently added apps.

Which items appear in the start list

By default, the list of places in the start list are Documents, Pictures,
and settings. To changes which places appear in the list, open the
“Choose which folders appear on Start” link.
You're taken to a page which contains a button for each of the items which can appear
in the places list, and these include your personal folder and your music folder.

Customizing Cortana and search

The settings for Cortana and search can be found in the main Cortana category of the
Settings app. You can, as usual, get there either by opening the Settings app, and then
opening the main Cortana category, or by searching for Cortana settings. In addition,
you can also get to the Cortana page of the Settings app by:

Press Windows key + S to open the Cortana window.

Press Tab until you get to a list, in which Home is the initial
focus.

In this list, select Settings, and press Enter.

Enabling shortcut to get Cortana to listen

By default, this shortcut is not enabled. In the Settings app, in the main Cortana category,
in the Talk to Cortana category, there's a button with the name Let Cortana listen for my
commands when I press the Windows logo key + C. You can press Spacebar
to change whether this button is On or Off.

Whether Cortana responds to “Hey Cortana”

In the Settings app, in the main Cortana category, in the Talk to Cortana category,
there's a button with the name Let Cortana respond to “Hey Cortana”. Press
SpaceBar to change whether the button is On of Off.

Signing into Cortana with a Microsoft account

If you've signed into Windows using a local account, rather than a Microsoft account,
then for Cortana to respond to many requests, you need to sign in to Cortana with a Microsoft
account. You can do this either when Cortana prompts you with a sign in page,
or whenever you want, by going to the sign in page of the Cortana window:

Press Windows key + S to open the Cortana window.

Press Tab until you get to a list, in which Home is the initial
focus.

In this list, select Sign in, and press Enter. The sign in page
is displayed in the main area of the Cortana window, and the Sign in button on
that page becomes the focus.

Press the Sign in button. You are taken to the first of a series of pages
for signing in.

Enter the email address of your Microsoft account, Tab
to the Next button, and press it.

Enter your password, Tab to the Sign in button, and press it.
You are taken to another page.

Tab to the “microsoft apps only” link, and open
it.

Customizing Jump Lists

You can set whether or not Jump Lists include recently or frequently opened items.
In the Settings app, in the Personalization main category, in the Start category,
there's a “Show recently opened items in Jump Lists on Start or the taskbar” button.
This button is On by default.

Customizing the taskbar buttons

By default, if there are a number of windows open for the same app, then these are
combined into a single button. This is normally the best of option, but you can
change it if you want to.

In the Settings app, in the Personalization main category, in the Taskbar category,
there's a Combine taskbar buttons combo box, which contains three options:

Always hide labels. With this option, an app can only have a single button.
Note that whether or not labels are hidden is irrelevant to users of screen readers, since
the label is read whether or not it is visibly displayed. This is the default option,
and the guide assumes this option.

When taskbar is full. Given that users of screen readers
don't know when the taskbar is full, this intermediate option probably
isn't very useful.

Never. Using this option, each open window has its own button.
The disadvantages of this option include that there are more buttons to
navigate, it's not so obvious what button belongs to what app,
and that the keystroke Ctrl + Windows Key + number
doesn't work.

Customizing the Notification area

The settings for the notification area are in the Settings app, where in the main Personalization category,
there's a Taskbar category.

To change which icons are shown in the notification area:

Tab to the “Select which icons appear on the
taskbar” link, and open it. You are taken to a new page.

The first control on the page is an “Always show all icons in the notification
area” button. This button is Off by default.

If the first button is Off, that is all icons are not set to be shown, then following
the first button, there are buttons for the possible apps and system services that might
appear in the notification area.

Customizing notifications

The settings for notifications are in the Settings app, where in the main system category,
there's a Notifications & actions category.

Whether to show notifications which give tips about windows

There's a “Get tips, tricks and suggestions as you use Windows” button,
which is On by default.

Whether to get notifications

There's a “Get notifications from apps and other senders” button. If this is Off, then you
won't get any notifications from these senders. If it is On then, you can customize the notifications
for each sender, as described in the next section.

Customizing the notifications from each app

For each app which sends notifications you can set whether you want to receive notifications, and if so,
what type, and the priority they are given in the Action centre. The controls for these settings appear
after the heading “Get notifications from these apps”.

For each app, there are a couple of buttons.

The first button, whose name is the name of the app, opens a new page which contains
all the notification settings of that app, and these are described below.

The name of the second button is also the name of the app. If this
button is Off, then there will be no notifications of any kind from this app.
This button has the same setting as the notifications button which is available after pressing
the first button, as described below.

The settings which are available if you press the first button are as follows.
The first control is a notifications button: if this is Off there will be no notifications
of any kind; if it's On, then after this button a number of additional buttons are available
which let you specify which types of notification you want. For example, there are buttons
for showing notification banners, and playing a sound. In addition, there is a
combo box for setting the number of notifications visible in the action centre for
this sender, and a series of radio buttons for setting the priority of the notifications
in the action centre.

Next to the name of the first button, there's some text which gives a summary of the
app's notification settings. When you Tab to the first button, screen readers don't
automatically read this text. It can be read using Jaw's touch cursor, but if you want to
find out the settings, it's probably just as easy to just press the button to go to
the settings page.

Time notification banners remain open

You can change the time notification banners remain open both in the Control panel,
and the Settings app, and using the latter will be described here.

A quick way of opening the Settings app at the main Ease of Access
category is to press the shortcut Windows key + U.
The settings app opens at the Ease of Access page, with the first category,
Display, selected.

Tab to the Show notifications for combo box, and select the
time that you want.

Customizing the Action centre

You can choose both which quick action buttons are shown, and their order, although the latter
is not easy using Jaws. These settings are in the Settings app, where in the System main category
the settings are in Notifications & actions category.

To choose which quick actions are shown, Tab to the Add or remove quick actions link,
and open it. A new page opens which contains a button for each of the quick actions which can be displayed
in the Action centre. When the button for a quick action is On, then it is displayed.

The first control in the Notifications & actions category is a list box which contains the quick
actions arranged in one or more rows in exactly the same way in which the quick action buttons are
arranged when they are expanded. Sighted users can easily rearrange the items in the list by dragging them.
It's possible to do this using Jaws, but it's not straightforward.

Customizing Focus assist

The settings for Focus are in the Settings app, where in the main system category,
there's a Focus assist category.

Automatic rules

Three rules are provided for automatically turning Focus assist on: during certain times,
when you're duplicating your display to an external monitor, and
when you're playing a game.

For each of the three rules, there are a couple of buttons.

The first button, whose name is the name of the rule, opens a new page which contains
all the settings of that rule, and these are describe below.

The name of the second button is also the name of the rule, and switches the
rule On or Off.

The settings which are available if you press the first button
are as follows. There is a button for setting the rule to be on or off. If the button
is on, then after the button there are a number of additional controls for the rule's settings.
For all rules this includes:

A Focus level combo box with the two options: priority only and alarms only

A check box for whether a notification is sent to the action centre when focus assist is
turned on using this rule.

After the three pairs of buttons for the rules, there is a check box for whether you want a
banner notification sent at the end of a period when focus assist has been automatically
turned on, giving a summary of the notifications which have been kept out of your way.

Priority list

To customize your priority list, open the customize your priority list link, which comes immediately after
the Priority only radio button. A Priority list page opens, and this has three sections: Calls, texts, and Reminders;
People; and Apps.

In the People and Apps sections there are lists of contacts and apps respectively. If you want to remove
an item from one of these lists, press Enter or Spacebar to expand the item,
Tab to a remove button that is now shown, and press it.